“The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed.” - Charlotte Bronte

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

A Euphemism Party!

As a devoted wife, a loving mother of three, and a daughter of our Heavenly Father, I do try to maintain a positive attitude (despite life's struggles), to exhibit patience, to emulate the example of our Savior, and to show kindness and charity toward others from day to day. But let's face it - life is full of challenges, bittersweet moments, failures, and monotonous days that tug on my sanity (at least some times it can feel that way). There are some days that I simply find it difficult to keep my head up and put a smile on my face.

When those days arise, I acknowledge the need to snap myself out of "the funk" I am in, and find myself ardently seeking ways to uplift my spirits and maintain an attitude of gratitude - because hey, I can do hard things; Cue the euphemism of the day (hereinafter referred to as the EOTD).

This is where I find myself invoking (yet again) The Purple Lady's genius, for it was she who first turned me onto the idea of the EOTD - and I must say that it is an absolutely inspired way to take a negative principle and infuse it with positive energy.

For quite some time, the EOTD has been our little inside joke. We take the super tedious things that we absolutely loath doing (like washing dishes or scrubbing the bathroom) and turn them into a euphemism:

I adore staying up all hours of the night to complete crap-tastic homework assignments (that I procrastinated doing until the last possible minute) because it challenges my otherwise distracted mind and makes me a stronger person.

Ha! I hope that YOU at least got a kick out of that one, Lar. Or how about this one...I absolutely LOVE doing the dishes because it provides me with a clean environment and makes me feel happy.Yeah, if doing the dishes makes me happy, then my name is Iron Man (haha. It was the first eccentric character that came to mind. My toddler has been on an Iron Man kick lately, so it's pretty much all we've watched over the last few days). But seriously, every time I evoke the power of the euphemism now, I immediately feel my cheek muscles contracting into a smile - I can't help it. My thinking has actually become so altered by this exercise that I often find myself in the middle of some daunting task (changing a diaper, for example - and heaven knows that with two babies, this sometimes seems to be all I do for the majority of my day), and the euphemism comes to mind before the negative thought has a chance to form:Changing diapers brings me such joy. It makes baby happy, and endows me with a sense of importance. What's not to love?Bahahaha. I pulled that directly from a EOTD tweet that I recently posted. Hehe. It was an actual thought that I had when I was changing my 4-month-old's diaper. Come on - I know that it made you smile. :-D In all seriousness, I decided to share this one guilty pleasure with you guys today because I felt selfish maintaining near-sole possession of such an uplifting, empowering, little secret - and I want to invite all of you to take part in the joy (and the madness). ;)Please feel free to leave your EOTD in the comments below, and don't forget to check out #DailyEuphemism on Twitter too. Maybe we can even start our own little twitter euphemism party. ::winks at The Purple Lady::